Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective Buys Majority Position In The Atlantic, Expanding Media Reach

Laurene Powell Jobs with Russlynn Ali at Summit Everest High School, an exemplary charter school. Photo: Jake Stangel

For more than 20 years, Laurene Powell Jobs has engaged in education-reform through her organization, Emerson Collective. In her March 2016 Vogue interview, Powell explained why she's always been attracted to Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists.

“So there’s Emerson’s idea of self-reliance,” she explained to Robert Sullivan, who explains that self-reliance is a big theme for Powell Jobs, given her rural New Jersey roots and current status as one of the world's richest people.  “I’ve always had this idea that you have to make the most of things,” she says. “And then collective because I wanted the idea that you achieve your goals with people, because good ideas come from a lot of places.”

Laurene Powell Jobs and her Emerson Collective made news this week with the announcement that they have bought a majority stake in The Atlantic magazine and website. David G. Bradley, the chairman and owner of Atlantic Media will retain a minority stake in The Atlantic and will continue as chairman and operating partner for at least three to five years, writes The Atlantic. In a letter to his staff, Bradley wrote that Emerson Collective will most likely assume full ownership of The Atlantic within five years.

Emerson Collective already has significant investments in media, from movie-production companies such as Anonymous Content to start-ups such as The California Sunday Magazine. The organization has provided support to several nonprofit journalism outlets, including the Marshall Project and ProPublica.

In a statement, Powell Jobs noted that her inspiring muse Ralph Waldo Emerson was a co-founder of The Atlantic. She praised the highly-profitable, expending audience magazine for the breadth and scope of its purpose: to “bring about equality for all people; to illuminate and defend the American idea; to celebrate American culture and literature; and to cover our marvelous, and sometimes messy, democratic experiment.”

Related: Lauren Powell Jobs' $100 Million Mission to Disrupt American High School New York Magazine

Update: Podcaast Startup Gimlet Media Raises $15 Million From Stripes Group, Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective Variety Aug. 2, 2017